Schadenfreude
by Intricacy
Summary: For those timetraveling fics: How he fell in love before his mind caught up. Rated for safety. TomGinny Oneshot
1. Schadenfreude

**Schadenfreude **

_For those time-traveling fics. How he fell in love before his mind caught up. Tom/Ginny_

Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter.

Okay, one-shot fic. Yes, I know; if I'm updating, why another one-shot? Why not update one of my stories? Well, I have a vocab test coming up this Thursday, and I kinda don't wanna fail. My vocabulary rivals a scrap of coconut, and so I figured writing a fanfiction using the words would help me remember their spelling and such. So sorry if I use several of these words incorrectly. XP

Enjoy, however!

* * *

That new girl, with deep auburn hair and delicate porcelain skin, with a fiery and lively glint in her warm chocolate eyes.

That new girl, who claimed some sort of bizarre, esoteric story of her past.

That new girl, who competed readily with him in his grades, something that never happened before.

That new girl, who gave him a new sense of xenophobia.

He never thought he'd ever hate a Pureblooded beauty, but he did. She was for everything he was against. She was the only person who refused to kowtow to his charms. She was an anathema to him. She was his nemesis.

She didn't seem too fond of him, either, but they were always pushed in each other's way. Potions, Transfiguration, Defense Against the Dark Arts. She seemed to be taking every course he was.

She always deprecated his words, thoughts, and actions. She called them macabre. She stood stiffly when he came around, a strange look in her eye – a look that even Tom Riddle could not interpret. Fear? Regret? Hesitation? Obfuscation?

She was everywhere, a denizen of his thoughts. He could not shake off her image, and he hated it_. Decimate this obsession. Preclude her from your thoughts._ He couldn't. He was consumed.

He found vignettes of the petite auburn-haired witch at the corners of his parchment. How did they get there? Had _he_ drawn those? It couldn't be. Impossible. He hated her.

His life's conundrum revolved around her. _Mollify yourself. Ostracize her away from your mind._ He couldn't. He'd already fallen into this inexorable feeling that made him shiver with disgust.

She was turning the corner, heading toward Charms, like she always did at 9:53. He strode out. Display of bravado. What was he doing? He caught ahold of himself. Attempting to impress his nemesis? It was ludicrous. He changed his obsequious words into vituperative ones.

Confusion was clear in her delicate face. Satisfaction swelled within him. The insufferable emotion was temporarily gone. _But she won't love you this way_. Love? Love? The idea was laughable. He didn't care.

Temporarily.

Shoot more pejorative diatribes at her. Emote hate. Emote? No, not emote. Reveal. Reveal hate. Give her an onerous time as her Potions partner. Relief flooded within him. The intolerable feeling was temporarily gone. _But she won't love you this way._ Love? The idea was jocular. He didn't care… He didn't care. Of course he didn't care. Of course he didn't.

That one Ravenclaw with pale blond hair is showering her with obsequious flattery. It roiled his blood. The next day, the Ravenclaw was found half-conscious outside, floating on the lake. A hint of a smile at the debacle. He turned to that chocolate-eyed girl that had warped his mind. She was worried, she was shocked. Horrified. If she knew, she would hate him forever. _She won't love you this way._ Love…

He was surprised that it hurt.

That she would never love him. It was against the nomenclature of life. Their melodies produced cacophony instead of song.

That night, she found him sitting by the lake. The sun was dipping down low, its grand array of colors surrounding it to keep it warm. However, the day was cooling when she sat next to him, staring into the lake.

"I know you did it," she said softly.

_She knows…_ His heart came to a stop.

She turned to face him, using her finger to lift his chin, forcing him to stare into those cursed chocolate eyes.

"Why?"

He didn't say anything, and he didn't need to. The truth was in his eyes, and she could read it. She was the only one who could ever read him.

He used to hate it.

That night, he burgeoned into someone new.

A better person.

And the next day, she disappeared.

Never to be seen again.


	2. Sometimes

Sometimes

Since _Schadenfreude _really did help me do well on the vocab quiz last time (I got an A! Which is really, really saying something! Hehehehe), I decided to write a sequel to it. Hope you guys enjoy it! And, once again, please pardon any misused words.

By the way, just to prevent confusion, this takes place in Ginny's time period, after Ginny goes back in time to change Riddle. Kind of the result of the conflicting ideas of if Ginny would remember anything at all when she returns to her time.

This sequel is none as good as the first, so I will understand if you hate it.

She would fall asleep every night and it seemed, every Thursday, she would have a dream about a strange, handsome boy with dark hair and luring eyes. They varied from night to night, never repeating the exact dream – but she was beginning to notice specific patterns.

There were_ those _dreams. The bête noire of her sleep.

Sometimes, she held a blank, black diary within her hands, a quill broken on the floor from her nervous tight grip. The obstreperous young man smirked in triumph. Her face grew pallor with an immense emotion of betrayal, horror, and deceit – but above all, guilt. Horrid, horrid guilt, and she hated it. It clenched her heart so that even as she fell to the floor unconscious in her dream, she could not stop spiting herself.

Even as she woke, she felt that same horrid guilt stabbing at her, suffocating her as her eyes brimmed with tears.

Then there was angst sometimes. Angst that rose and suffocated her throat, sometimes in utter silence, sometimes in deafening noise, beaten under draconian law. Sometimes, they were in a room that Ginny recognized as Sirius's home, crowding over a table, wands tracing maps and low mutters whispering to each other. Sometimes, they were walking outside, their hoods pulled up to cover their face, alone in a deserted street or walking through ruins.

Sometimes, they were caught in war, spells being fired. Her brother Bill's handsome face was distorted into a swollen redness; one of her twin brothers fell to the floor, dead. There wasn't enough time to tell which one it was. She herself was being attacked. Ensconced in sanguine obsequies.

Sometimes, anger and indescribable fury had overcome her. She sought vendetta, her wand clenched in her hand as she fired horrible, horrible curses that made her shake when she woke. Was that person her? Was she really that horrid?

Sometimes, images of a great juggernaut as they forayed into the quiet village, leaving a snake feeding into the mouth of a skull burning in the sky, an image that will forever send shivers down her back. They called themselves the Death Eaters.

Sometimes, she was alone with a hideously distorted man, a smirk tugging at either side of his lips as he raised his wand threateningly. He was to kill her. He wanted to rid the word of what he viewed as hoi polloi, the Muggleborns and the blood traitors. The air was fraught with angst, fraught with angst. Only death and power could slake his hunger, but even then, he still wanted more.

She always knew instinctively that this mutated man was the same as that handsome, mysterious boy. How, or why, she was not sure, but she knew. She always knew.

However, the saturnine dreams did not always come. There were pleasant dreams as well, those these patterns did not number as great as the nightmares. But it was these few dreams that made her sleep past Thursdays and live through the week, for though they numbered few, she found them powerful.

A wave of comfort: a quill in one hand, a blank diary in the other. How strange it was that the same two objects that were found in her most horrifying nightmare was also in her most pleasant dream. The mysterious boy would always be there as a friend to talk to, a friend who'll listen to anything she said. Her woes were maudlin, but he never minded. He actually cared when no one else did. A smile flickered on her face and she would fear nothing when she woke from her slumber, confident and pleasant the entire day.

Sometimes, she would have a wonderfully mercurial conversation with him, and he was her best friend, her funniest friend. His eyes would sparkle with mirth as he pulled a prank on her, and she would do the same in return. They would picnic al fresco, restraining themselves from an immature food fight or pushing the other into the lake. She would always wake in good humor, unfazed by Fred and George's morning prank.

How odd that in some dreams, she was under the boy's aegis, but yet others, she feared him so.

Lately, she had gotten new dreams. Dreams of her in Hogwarts, in school uniform. He was there, with many people she didn't recognize. He bullied her, provoked her, made fun of her in a cruel manner, quite like Malfoy's taunts to Ron. In other dreams, he… She didn't quite understand. He was looking at her when he thought she didn't notice with no trace of cruelty at all, but more of… hope? Wistfulness?

And there was this one dream. The one and only dream that never changed no matter how many times she dreamt it. The one dream that stayed the same.

It was nighttime by the lake. Hardly any words were spoken, and none were exchanged. He sat beside her, never speaking a word. He turned to look at her once, and his eyes were clear.

He loved her.

But she never understood. How could this be the same man, as to be her friend, her enemy, her murderer, her lover? How many shades of personality did he have? Sanguine and stiff. Quixotic and harsh. Shoot badinages at her, shoot curses at her. Pleasant friend, horrid curmudgeon.

She didn't know what to think of this boy, this man, who seemed to be everything at once. Fear him? Hate him? Admire him? Love him?

It was a riddle, she had realized one day. A riddle that continued every Thursday. But never, never could she figure it out.

Perhaps the reason she was stymied from the answer was because there wasn't one.

----------------------------

Ginny Weasley played with her quill as she scribbled down her name, letting the ink dry before shutting her dream diary shut. Unlike most students, she kept her dream diary diligently, despite her dislike for both Divination and Professor Trelawney. She found these recurring Thursday dreams odd and, to an extent, fascinating. As she blew gently on the ink one final time, she shut the book and hurried down the hallway, glancing at the grandfather clock as she went.

Five minutes to get to Herbology. She was running late.

As she turned a corner, she slammed into a body. Her books spilled on the floor as she hastily apologized, grabbing her things before leaving. She did not pause to see who she had walked into.

As she disappeared down the corridor, not glancing back, the boy she had left behind smiled slightly as he bent down to pick up a small book that she had forgotten to grab in her haste. Flipping open the pages, a smile flickered across his face.

She remembered him.

She remembered him, even if she didn't understand it at all.


End file.
